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Science 11 April 1997:
Vol. 276. no. 5310, pp. 245 - 247
DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5310.245
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Reports

Activated Acetic Acid by Carbon Fixation on (Fe,Ni)S Under Primordial Conditions

Claudia Huber, Günter Wächtershäuser *

In experiments modeling the reactions of the reductive acetyl-coenzyme A pathway at hydrothermal temperatures, it was found that an aqueous slurry of coprecipitated NiS and FeS converted CO and CH3SH into the activated thioester CH3-CO-SCH3, which hydrolyzed to acetic acid. In the presence of aniline, acetanilide was formed. When NiS-FeS was modified with catalytic amounts of selenium, acetic acid and CH3SH were formed from CO and H2S alone. The reaction can be considered as the primordial initiation reaction for a chemoautotrophic origin of life.

C. Huber, Department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstraße 4, D-85747 Garching, Germany.
G. Wächtershäuser, Tal 29, D-80331 München, Germany.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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